Everything Merges with the Night
by kingfisherwings
Summary: A PhD student on a research sabbatical discovers she has some...unique neighbors. Prequel to "Between Gentlemen."
1. Chapter 1

The refrigerator crapped out as Julia was putting the last of the antivenom in it. Of course. She considered it for a few seconds, then took a step back and kicked it as hard as she could. It wheezed back to life, but it didn't sound happy about it. She was going to have to go back to town and see if she could find a dorm fridge somewhere. She couldn't be without the antivenom, though she hoped to not have to use it.

The coolers would be all right until tomorrow; it was 40 miles to the gap in the ditches that was the closest thing to a town around here. She put the antivenom back in the coolers, and the coolers in the fridge. Even if it went belly-up overnight, that would be enough for the night.

The whole place was to some degree - usually a greater one - rickety. But the location was ideal for her, and the price was unnervingly right. No one wanted to live out here, the realtor had told her, because the commute was too far. It had been rented out as a hunting camp during the past ten years or so, but not last year or the one before.

Julia thought that was what the place looked like, word for word. If the realtor had said it before they'd gotten here, she would have pictured this house exactly. She was going to have to clean; she wasn't fussy, but this was a little much even for her. She'd bargained for a new mattress in the main bedroom, but right now she wouldn't consider eating anything cooked in the kitchen. She was glad she'd thought to bring a bunch of packaged stuff; she was too tired from a day's moving in to even think about cleaning.

It would be nice if they'd gotten the water turned on, though, so she could think about it tomorrow. She turned to try the kitchen tap.

There was something at the window. _Filling_ the window. It took her eyes a few seconds to make a human being out of what looked like a mountain of hair. A human being who was looking at her like he was contemplating how she'd taste with ketchup.

She didn't just scream. She threw her head back and shrieked. Almost as soon as it was out of her mouth, she realized how dumb doing it was; who was going to come to her rescue out here? She bolted out the door after her uninvited guest, but he was already gone. She thought she saw a flash of red in the trees on the other side of the leaning picket and wire fence that separated this property from the one next to it. Great. The realtor had kind of glided past her questions about the neighbors. She meant to have some answers now. She went back in and snatched up her cell phone. Miracle of miracles, it worked out here.

"What the _fuck_ did you put me next door to?"

"Uh, well...a cult."

"A what?" She felt like she'd been punched in the gut, and the words came out sounding like it, too.

"A cult. Don't worry, they've never bothered anyone who's rented the place. Just...don't go over there. They don't like company."

"Neither do I, but that didn't stop one of them from coming over for a look in the kitchen window."

"Oh. I'm, uh...really sorry."

"What you are is a lying cunt. Did you really think that was information I wouldn't want to have?"

She felt better after the call, but it didn't really change anything - not in a tourist state in summer. She wasn't going to find anywhere better for her research, and even if she could somehow, the chances of it still being available in June were nil. She was committed to this place, cult and all. She did get an extra fifty shaved off the rent, though, so that was something.

She left early in the morning, mostly pissed that she would lose a good part of a day's work. That had most of her attention, so she was ten miles up the excuse for a road when she realized she hadn't stuffed any extra money from her bolthole into her purse; she was going to need it for the little fridge, if she could find one.

The hair mountain was standing at her computer when she got back. Whatever he was doing had all his attention. She grabbed the shotgun from behind the kitchen door.

"Next maybe you should Google 'Why the fuck shouldn't I blow your head off right now?'."

He whipped around - he was way faster than he looked like he should be - and took half a step toward her before he saw the shotgun. He stopped. He looked as surprised as she thought she must, but there was something else in his expression. Approval? Admiration?

"I wasn't going to take anything."

His voice was deep, unexpectedly pleasant, and definitely pitched to be soothing. Something in the back of her mind filed away that he wasn't local, either. "Lucky for you. There's not a hell of a lot to take here. What were you doing on my computer?"

"Trying to find out what's in the refrigerator."

"Did it help much?"

"No."

"It's antivenom. For snakebite."

Now he definitely looked surprised. "It's a lot. I thought it was insulin."

Most people would if they saw the vials. Julia backed up a little and pushed one of the kitchen chairs out with her foot, then moved to the other side of the table. "Why don't you have a seat."

He did, then put his hands on the table. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Not with a shotgun pointed at your face, you're not."

"Even without. Besides - " He reached, slowly, into the breast pocket of his sleeve-hacked shirt. He put a handful of shells on the table, then put his hands back down next to them.

_Well, fuck me running._ She cracked the shotgun. Empty. She sighed and put it down. "All right, now what? I can't shoot you, and I doubt the cops would come if I called them."

"They won't."

She had no reason to believe him other than her own hunch about it, but she did. "So you didn't come here to rob the broke, and you didn't come around to maul me, so you say. What _are_ you doing here?"

"Finding out what _you're_ doing here."

It was weird to be answered so plainly. As if the rest of this wasn't weird enough. "Did you ever consider just asking?"

"We thought it would disturb you less this way. You weren't supposed to know I was here. What _are_ you doing here?"

_Well, I did ask._ "Research."

"About snakes?"

"Yes." She was starting to feel kind of stupid standing up. She pulled out the chair next to her and sat down.

"I saw all the papers. Why here?"

"Because snakes don't do research-lab cattle calls. You want to study them, you have to go where they are."

He nodded as if the answer satisfied him. "We won't bother you. But don't...wander."

"I hadn't planned on it. Research ethics statements usually include not barging onto other people's property." The one she'd signed for the grant actually had, too.

"I didn't sign one of those."

She would have sworn there was a brief flash of a smile from inside all that hair. "So I noticed."

The refrigerator kicked on with a groan that she managed to only jump a couple of inches at.

"That's going to break. Soon. Compressor's bad."

"It already went once."

"You fixed it?"

"I kicked it."

That flash of a smile came and went again. "I can fix it."

_Which gets you invited back._ But she certainly couldn't. "All right. Thanks."

"I'll come back tomorrow." He got up; she reached for the shotgun, then immediately felt like a moron for doing it. He stopped at the door. "What's your name?"

"Julia."

He nodded. "Luke." He handed her the shotgun shells and left without another word.

_I've got to be out of my mind._ But she might as well be friendly, if she couldn't shoot them. She had to live next door to them for three months, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

He came back while she was cleaning. The toolbox he was carrying looked like it had been run over by a train. Twice.

She knew she was being inspected as she led him into the kitchen. She had a pair of cutoffs and a t-shirt on - hardly seductive - but she still briefly wished for a muumuu. Well, it was normal male behavior, anyway. That was kind of a relief.

He moved the refrigerator out like it was made of cardboard. She hadn't been able to budge it an inch. "I have to unplug it. Will that stuff be all right for half an hour?"

She nodded. After a few seconds, she decided to sit down and watch. Just the spectacle of him trying to wedge himself behind the refrigerator was a sight; he was a big man, no doubt about it.

She found herself wondering what was under the mountain of hair. His hair itself not so much - she liked long hair on a man, and his suited him - as the absolute detonation of a beard. If she wasn't going to be holding a shotgun any more, what her hands really wanted now was scissors and a comb. She had a suspicion there was a good-looking man under there someplace...and another that it was a good idea to not think too hard about that.

He didn't say anything while he worked, but she got an impression of someone who knew what he was doing. It took about the half hour he'd said until he pushed the fridge back into place. "It'll go for a while. You need a new compressor, though."

_Oh, grand._ "How much is that going to set me back?"

"200 probably. Plus delivery. You want someone to deliver it; they're heavy. I can put it in."

She could swing it, but it was going to hurt. A certain lying cunt was going to be getting another phone call. "How do I tell you when it's here?"

"We'll know. A delivery truck is an event out here. You got the money for it?"

She nodded. "I'm going to take it out of the realtor's hide. 'Everything works,' my ass."

He smiled; there was no doubt this time. "Probably not the only thing she lied to you about, is it?"

"No. It's definitely not. What do I owe you?"

"Lunch."

He'd worked through it, that was true. And her mother's legacy to her mostly consisted of _You've got company, you feed them._ She'd been planning on not much more than a sandwich, but she rummaged around in the refrigerator - which sounded a lot less like it was about to heave its guts - and came up with the stuff for a casserole. "Have a seat. Not at gunpoint, for a change."

She knew he was watching her while she cut up things. _Enjoy the rear view, fella._ She thought maybe she didn't want to turn around and see the expression on his face.

"She didn't tell you about us, did she?"

She didn't have to ask who he meant. "Sure she did. Yesterday. She also said I wouldn't see any of you, that nobody who rented the place had. She has an accuracy problem."

"Or a completeness one. She's right, no one has. No one's rented it since we got here."

_I'm going to put my foot so far up her ass I'll be reaching down her throat to untie my right shoe._ "So I'm the proud occupant of the local unrentable."

"Yeah. You probably made her year."

"Complete with a picture of me on the bulletin board labeled _Non-local Dumbass_."

"We really aren't going to bother you. Other than me."

She thought it was supposed to be comforting. More or less. She mixed everything up and turned it into the casserole dish, and stuck it in the oven. She thought that would be enough warning to stop staring, if that was what he was doing. "You're earning your keep way too much to be bothering me. Thanks, by the way."

He nodded briefly when she turned around. Lunch was half an hour away, and things got awkward. He asked questions, but she was keenly aware that he wasn't answering very many. Apparently asking questions fell under the heading of 'wandering.' She stopped. She thought he looked relieved.

He ate three-quarters of what came out of the oven, which pleased her. An appreciative audience was always nice. _Whatever they're feeding you over there, it must not be enough._

He left right after, again without any kind of goodbye.

* * *

"You're done being neighborly?"

Luke had told Bray what he'd found out yesterday; he'd seemed satisfied with it. "She has to get a new compressor."

"Which you'll be installing, of course?"

"She can't."

Bray smiled. "And she's a pretty girl? You never said."

Luke nodded. "But kind of like she doesn't know it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. No makeup or fancy hair, stuff like that. All business."

Which, Bray thought, Luke probably found more appealing than the opposite; he'd certainly never paid much attention to the opposite at work, where it was all but falling out of the skies. "You find her interesting, then."

"She's smart. Got some teeth to her, too. That real estate woman is going to wish she'd never met her."

"But not curious?"

"A little. She stopped asking when I didn't answer."

Bray nodded. "Good. You've set yourself a challenge, you know."

Luke glanced at him, gaze shielded. Not that it really helped. It never did.

"I trust your judgement, Luke, just as I have all along. But don't forget she's an outsider. Don't forget it for a moment. She won't."

He knew it. She seemed to be accepting his presence, sure, but he had no doubt it was conditional. _Very_ conditional.

* * *

Julia wasn't happy at losing two days of work before she even got started. She threw herself entirely into catching up. She went out before dawn and stayed out until the light at dusk became untrustworthy, with two hours for lunch in the hottest part of the day. If the snakes were smart enough to hole up then, she ought to be, as well.

She spent four days that way - work, eat, collapse, work some more - and loved every bit of it. Classes were fine for what they were; so was lab work. But she got into the field because she loved the animals it was about, not for textbooks. She'd heard every snake-handling joke ever invented; that didn't bother her. The assumption that she "shouldn't" be doing this because her plumbing was innie instead of outie bothered her a lot more.

She'd seen Luke once in those four days, after she'd finished up on the third day and was slumped happily in a chair on the back porch, pondering if she had the energy to go take a shower yet.

"Catch any of 'em?"

She was surprised at how pleased she was to see him. "The idea is kind of to see if they want to catch me." She laughed at the look that earned her. "They're territorial sometimes. The subspecies around here is supposed to be especially so. I'm trying to sort out whether that's all folktales or not."

He sat on the second step, legs stretched out. "Saving the reputation of a poor, misunderstood animal everyone thinks is much more vicious than it is?"

"Or making it worse. The deal is I tell the truth. Whatever it is. Or I don't get my degree."

"And what do you do when you get it?"

"Start competing for a job."

"Join the rat race?"

"It's a good thing I study animals that eat rats, huh?"

He smiled up at her; it was definitely a smile this time, no doubt. "It's good you're tough. It's a hard world. Ugly."

"But not in there where you are?"

"I'm not trying to sell you something. Neither will anyone else. You're smart. You'll figure things out." He stood, stretching. "You must be hungry; you worked through the whole day this time."

"Want some dinner?"

"I already did. Another time."

He was long gone before she realized he'd all but said he'd been watching her today - and at other times, too, maybe. It bothered her a little...but less than it would have even a couple of days ago. _God help me, I think I'm getting used to him._


	3. Chapter 3

_I want to thank everyone who's responded to this story and to "Between Gentlemen." They've been fun to write, and the response has been much more than I was expecting. It's much appreciated!_

* * *

Luke was right about the truck; he showed up half an hour after the compressor did, bashed-up toolbox in hand.

Julia decided to just go ahead and cook something; she expected this to take a lot longer than the spit-and-baling-wire repair had. She hadn't seen him for a few days, either; she was surprised by how much she'd missed his company. It was getting hard to chalk that up solely to his being her only company; going into town didn't make her any happier than seeing him did. On the contrary, the townies made her more nervous than he did, sometimes a lot more.

He talked to her more as he worked this time; she didn't feel like she was learning any more from it, but it passed the time easily. The only time she was taken aback was when she mentioned not liking going to town very much.

His head snapped up, eyes blazing in a way that reminded her of what had scared her so much the first time she saw him. "Do they bother you there?"

"Just the usual hey-baby stuff. Nothing I can't handle."

It was a few seconds before he nodded and went back to work.

When he plugged the refrigerator back in an hour later, the first thing she noticed was how quiet it was. She'd almost gotten used to the shuddering and thumping. "My God, you're a miracle worker."

He just smiled, and ate like a starved man again when she put the food in front of him.

They sat on the back porch as dusk fell. She'd spent some time during her cleaning frenzy sealing tears in the screens with tape and nail polish, and it was much cooler and mosquito-free out there.

"You like it here, don't you?" Luke's gesture swept over what was outside the house, not inside.

"I think if I never had to see the inside of a lab again, I'd be okay with that. It's part of the thing so I do it, you know? But not the part I love about it. There aren't many places like this left. Not enough. We lose touch with this, like we're not part of it, and it hurts us all." She stammered to a stop. "Wow. Sorry. I don't usually do that. All I'm missing is the soapbox, right?"

"You don't have to stop. I like it."

There was no doubt about the way he was looking at her now, not even in the dimness of the porch. She thought she should speak up, get...something about this straightened out, but all she did was look back. _Oh, this is SO a bad idea._

He got up abruptly and went to the door.

"Why don't you ever say goodbye?"

He paused, his hand on the door handle. "You should only say goodbye to things you know you'll never see again."

She sat thinking about that for a long time after he left.

Luke smiled at the sight of Erick waiting for him just on the other side of the fence. "How long have you been here?" He didn't really expect an answer; he didn't get one, either. "Did you want a look at her?"

Erick nodded; for obvious reasons, yes and no questions worked best with him.

"You got one?"

Another nod.

"If you think you want to visit, it has to be without the mask."

Another nod.

"I know what that's asking, but you'll scare her like this. I don't want you to do that."

Another nod. Luke knew it was of understanding, not an affirmative. It wasn't hard to get used to communicating with Erick; it took time and patience, was all. He had both.

* * *

The refrigerator uproar had set her back a bit, but in the next two weeks, Julia did a lot to catch up. In spite of Luke's teasing, she hadn't been chased by a single snake. Her personal theory was that it was just too damn hot to chase anything they weren't going to eat. It wouldn't make for a dramatic dissertation, but it would make for a consistent one if this kept up.

She'd been planning to put aside two days each month for compiling and writing. She'd rather be outdoors, but she didn't want to let the stats mass up until they were too much for her to juggle.

She was hip-deep in journals, air-temperature charts, and snake counts when Luke came in. As he had been for a while now, he intentionally made noise. He moved very quietly, and she'd had all her nerves could bear of jumping out of her skin when he finally said something from right behind her.

"Can you give me about ten minutes? I'm up to my butt in making sure I'm not duplicating anyone's research."

He sat on the couch and watched her with the same blunt lack of self-consciousness he seemed to do everything with. When one of her journal stacks started slipping, he reached out and pushed it back into place. Other than that, he just watched until she was done. "What happens if you do that? Duplicate things?"

"Then I'm in deep shit. Dissertations have to be original research. Sometimes it seems like half the work is making sure of that. Why do you only come around a couple days a week?"

She'd thought just dropping the question on him might throw him a little. It didn't. "I'm at work the rest of the time."

Somehow, the idea of him having a job was the strangest thing she'd had to wrap her brain around yet. "You travel? Or you work hell hours?"

He smiled. "Both."

Not much, maybe, but it was the most he'd had to say about himself, by far. His answers didn't exactly invite further probing, though. As she had many times already, she let it go.


	4. Chapter 4

The routine was peaceful, almost somnolent. Julia was getting work done, and she knew it was solid work. Her adviser hadn't been a fan of her coming out here alone, but she thought he'd be a lot happier when he saw the results.

When the peace broke, it wasn't in any way she would have imagined.

She was up late getting pages done - something she'd be grateful for later, when she had time to think about it - when the hammering on the door started. When she thought later, she'd also wonder at herself for it, but she ran and opened the door without even thinking to ask who was there.

It was Luke. He wasn't alone. He was half-dragging and half-carrying a man who, impossible as her brain insisted it was, was even bigger than him. He was also trying to juggle a burlap sack and something white she couldn't figure out in one hand.

"He stepped on a snake. It bit him. Can you help?"

She nodded, then did her best to help him get the other man inside. "Luke, he should go to the hospital."

He shook his head. "If you can help, we need you to."

He simply wouldn't fit on the couch, or on the bed. She ran for the bedroom and came back with a heap of blankets she hadn't expected to have any need for. She made the best nest from them she could and helped him get the man down onto it.

"I brought it." Luke nodded toward the sack.

"Is it dead?"

"Yeah. I thought you'd need to see it."

She actually didn't, beyond the thin hope that it wasn't venomous. The antivenom was polyvalent, and would work for any species in the region. She plucked a grabber out of the corner and used it to carry the sack out on the porch; snakes could play dead very convincingly.

There was no doubt when she tipped out the sack; the snake's head barely existed any more. It was a copperhead, and she felt a brief pang at its death, but it was the most sensible thing to have done. She went back in and started pulling the things she needed out of the refrigerator and cabinets.

Luke looked surprised at the armload she came back with. "You don't just give him a shot?"

"Only in the movies. If he has an allergic reaction to it, we're going to have a worse problem than the bite. Do you know if he's allergic to lanolin? Or wool? Mutton?"

Incredibly, Luke looked like he was about to start laughing. "I don't think so."

Julia nodded. "Normally we'd wait and see if the venom spreads. But I don't have anything for the pain. Counteracting the venom will help." She started the prep, letting the two months of training she'd had before they would let her have the antivenom take over: Reconstitute four vials with sterile water, mix the result into an IV bag of saline. "What's his name?"

"Erick."

"Erick?" She waited until the man was looking at her. "This is probably going to hurt some. But nowhere even close to as bad as you're hurting right now. I need you to hold still. Okay?"

The man nodded. He looked naturally very fair-skinned, but there was a grayness to his color that said he was hurting. She got the IV in and taped down, then handed the bag to Luke. "Hold that up by your head. I'll find something to hang it from."

She came back a few minutes later dragging her little laundry cart; it had a hook on it that did the job. She grabbed a pen from the desk and put marks around the wound.

"Now what?"

"Now we wait. If the wound swells more than an animal bite should, he'll need more."

They sat on the floor across the room, up against the couch, both leaning back against it. "Why no hospital? He's suffering a lot more than he would there."

"Maybe. They ask questions."

"So do I."

"Yeah, but you ask them _after_ you help. They ask before. And they don't stop. We had a girl break her leg last year. She sat in a cubicle crying for two hours while they asked her how old she was, where her family was, if she wanted them to call the police. We don't go to the hospital if we can do anything else."

"Okay, so pretty much fuck the hospital."

Luke shifted to a more comfortable position. Something crackled against his hand. He picked it up, and she found herself looking into the blank eyes of a sheep mask. "What the hell?"

"He wears it."

Which, she supposed, was better than any number of other things he might be doing with it. It probably also explained the laughing fit Luke had choked back. "Would he be more comfortable with it on?"

"Yeah, probably. You don't need it off?"

"I might need a peek under it a couple more times, but him being comfortable is a lot more important right now."

Luke brought the mask over to him; it looked to Julia like he intended to put it on the other man for him, but he shook his head. Luke came back to her looking surprised.

"That's unusual?"

"Very. He doesn't like people he doesn't know being able to see his face. I guess you made the cut."

"He doesn't talk very much, does he?"

"No."

"I figured. He's in a lot of pain right now, and he hasn't made a peep. I don't have anything I can give him for it. They let me have the antivenom, but no one was willing to discuss morphine."

"It hurts _that_ much? Have you ever been bitten?"

She pushed up her sleeve and showed him the underside of her upper arm. The scar was pretty impressive; it was why she didn't wear tank tops in spite of the heat. "It hurts that much. That was my first one. When I lifted my arm up to see how bad it was, the wind blew over it. I passed out right there where I was standing. If someone had put a gun in my hand after I woke up, I think I'd have shot myself, and done it laughing. It's horrible."

He reached out and ran a fingertip along the scar. She shivered. The scar itself was dead tissue, but the skin around it was sensitive as always. "How many times? You said this was the first one."

She thought, not for the first time, that one of the things she liked about him was that he really _listened_ to what she said. "Three. So I'm working my angels a little now." She smiled at the curious look he gave her. "Most people don't die from being bitten. The ones who do usually have an allergic reaction. The more times you're bitten, the more likely that is."

"Don't get bitten again."

She smiled. "I'll be more than happy to oblige. It doesn't hurt any less the third or fourth time than the first one."

"I need to tell them what's happening here. Think you two can be alone for ten minutes and not fight?"

"We may fight, but it doesn't look like we'll be doing much arguing. Go ahead. There's nothing more you can do now. He should stay overnight, though, in case he needs another dose."

"Do you think he will?"

"I'm leaning toward no. If you have to get bit, a copperhead's the one to hope for. They give warning bites pretty often. He didn't get a dry bite, but it's not a bad one. Better he doesn't move around much for a day or so, but he ought to be all right within the week." She felt like she was giving a report, and that was probably exactly what she was doing; he was going back to give one to someone.

"I'll be back in a few minutes. I'll stay, too."

"Afraid I'm a closet sex maniac?"

"Not afraid. Hopeful, maybe." He smiled and went out the door.

She went back to check on the progress of the bite. The swelling didn't seem to be advancing much any more. "I don't think I'll have to stick you again - which ought to make you as happy as it makes me, right? I think you dodged a bullet tonight, big guy."

When she turned to check on the IV bag, he grabbed her ankle - firmly, but carefully. It alarmed her less than it might have if he'd been in full health. "You need something? If you're hungry, you might want to hold off a while longer. That stuff makes a lot of people sick to their stomachs."

He shook his head, eyes intent on hers.

"Some water, maybe?"

He shook his head again, eyes still locked on hers. And suddenly, she wasn't sure how, she got it. "Oh. You're welcome."

He let go and looked like he might be settling in to at least try to sleep. She thought the pain would be too bad for that for at least a couple more hours.

Luke came back in less than the ten minutes he'd said. There wasn't much for them to do for the rest of the night but talk, and she was surprised to find him opening up a little more. He still didn't have much to say about his life now, but he did talk more about the past - where he'd come from, what his life had been like before he came here. She had a feeling she wasn't getting the whole story there, either, but she did get his last name. _Gee, and it only took a month and a half._

She dozed off at some point; she wasn't sure when. She woke with his arm around her, her head against his shoulder. As soon as she started moving, he took his arm away - not hurriedly, as if he'd been caught at something, but just to let her sit up straight again. She regretted it a little; there was a lot to be said for a strong arm.

"You were sliding."

"And you caught me."

He smiled down at her, the _Oh boy, you're still asleep_ look in his eyes unmistakable. "Yeah, I caught you."


	5. Chapter 5

Julia would rather have kept Erick for a second night, but he absolutely vibrated desire to go home. She didn't need Luke's help at all to interpret it. After extracting half a dozen promises - actually, the same promise half a dozen times - that Luke would come get her if there was any sign of increased pain or infection, she reluctantly agreed.

Things changed in subtle ways after Luke helped him back home. She started catching glimpses of other people over there, which she thought was probably a symptom of their wanting to catch a glimpse of her. It was a relief to see some women, not to mention men who didn't look like Ents. None of them spoke to her; she didn't try to start any conversations, either.

She saw more of Luke, too, though it was usually more a matter of his staying longer than turning up more often. His attitude seemed different, too; it wasn't so much that he was more comfortable with her, because he'd never really been uncomfortable, not that he'd shown her. She thought it was more that he assumed she was more comfortable with him. And he was right.

She got back into her weekly routine, which had settled into four days in the field, a day compiling, a day to take care of other things, and a day off. She'd gotten efficient enough with her "other" day that she didn't have to spend it on a trip to town every week. She was glad for it; she still didn't like going there very much. She also didn't like thinking hard about intentionally making her off day one of the ones Luke was around reliably on, but she did it each week. He'd gotten to be part of her routine, too.

She thought later it was the quiet that made her careless. She never saw anyone else unless she went to town, and she didn't even think about how much each trip advertised that she was alone in the middle of nowhere.

Someone else thought about it, though.

She woke up already in deep trouble. There were two men in her bedroom. She thought she recognized the one holding a hunting knife up in front of her face from town.

"We're gonna party a little, bitch. Why don't you just lay back and enjoy it? Ain't nobody gonna hear you out here if you scream, anyway."

He was probably right, but she did it anyway, loud enough to make him pull back for a moment. But only a moment.

"Wanna do it that way? That's fun, too. Even better. Get this little whore naked, let's get going."

The other one - she'd almost forgotten about him, all her attention focused on the knife as it was - reached out and tore her nightshirt down the front. The one with the knife fell on her hard enough to knock any chance of another scream out of her. She was surrounded by a cloud of laughing and grunting as he ground against her. The knife was against her throat, and the other one was pulling her hair hard enough to make her wonder if she'd end up with her throat slit entirely by accident.

"Come on, come on, fuck the bitch already. I want my turn."

She fought as hard as she could, even after she knew it was futile against two of them. They got her flipped over on her stomach, a hand jammed her face into a pillow, and the blackness started filling up with glittery specks. She barely felt the tatters of her nightshirt ripped the rest of the way off her. The sounds of their laughing and arguing over who would go first sounded like they were traveling down a long tunnel, echoey and distant, a thing happening to someone else far from her.

"Jesus _Christ_! No, man, wait! We weren't gonna do anything!" sounded like it was in the tunnel, too. The hand on the back of her head and the weight on her back were suddenly gone, but she couldn't get her body to understand that her brain wanted it to move, get up, run. She couldn't do it even when the screaming started. All she could manage was turning her head enough to breathe.

"Julia."

It was Luke's voice that finally cut through the fog. She flung herself in the direction it had come from. He caught her. _Again. You always do that._ She hated that she started crying. It was weak, stupid, useless. He didn't seem to mind; he didn't let go, anyway.

He was trying to wrap the sheet around her, tucking it between them as best he could without moving his arm from around her, when she heard sounds from somewhere else in the room. _Oh God, he didn't see the other one._ She choked out a warning, trying to struggle free to show him.

"It's all right, angel. It's just Erick. Go get Bray."

She was completely lost until she realized the last sentence wasn't directed at her. She shifted, trying to see what was happening.

"Don't. There's nothing here you want to see right now."

It felt easier to just listen. It felt right. She burrowed in closer to him, suddenly aware he didn't have a shirt on. It was a bit like snuggling up to a fur rug, but that was all right, too.

Bray had known from the expression on Erick's face that there was a problem. He had a good idea what it was likely to be before he saw for himself; they'd all heard the scream, and he'd seen Luke bolt for the house next door seconds after. It was only a question of how bad the problem was.

That didn't take much effort to figure out, either. He found Luke in the girl's bedroom, her in his arms and partly wrapped in a sheet she was clearly naked under. The look in his eyes strongly suggested he wouldn't mind a few more people to do to what he'd done to the two in the corner.

He checked, not that he really needed to. The one with the broken neck was very obviously dead. The one that had been tossed on top of him was, too.

All right, so the problem was bad.

"Did they?"

The girl flinched in Luke's arms. He whispered something, and she gradually went limp again. She'd nearly reached her limits.

"No. I stopped them." Luke met Bray's gaze for a moment, then lowered his head. "I lost control. I'm sorry."

"Sometimes loss of control is entirely justified. Take her back to the house. We'll take care of what needs to be done here."

Luke considered the girl for a few seconds, then scooped her up, sheet and all, and carried her out.

There was surprisingly little that did need done. A broken neck was a fairly clean death. There was some blood on the bottom sheet of the bed, and on the pillowcase, as well. He stripped them off the bed to take back; they would wash, and it was almost certainly her blood, anyway. He'd seen cuts on the girl's hands, and couple of nicks on her throat, when Luke had picked her up. She'd done more than just scream.

_And Luke did more than just stop them._ He'd known this was getting serious, at least from Luke's side. Now he knew exactly _how_ serious, and he thought it was likely to end in a heart no one thought existed getting broken.

What seemed like the big problem really wasn't. Erick hauled the bodies off to a part of the swamp Bray suspected the police didn't even know about. Given a few days, there wouldn't be much to find even if they did look. The real issue was what to do if they came around asking questions. There was a good chance they wouldn't, if the garbage they'd just disposed of hadn't bragged about their plans for the evening. If they had, a story would have to be in place and waiting.

By the time they made their way back to the house, Erick carrying a bag of clothing and other things for the girl, he had the basic structure of an enormous lie already in mind.


	6. Chapter 6

Bray found the girl in Luke's room, which was no surprise. She'd managed to tie the sheet around her in a makeshift dress. It was more surprising that Luke was sitting across the room from her, but they both seemed at ease with that. _She's comfortable with him. Interesting._ "I need to talk with our guest, Luke. Alone."

His clear hesitation to leave was even more interesting. Yes, this had definitely gone beyond whatever sexual desire he had for the girl. "Go. I won't put undue stress on her. She's had more than enough of that tonight."

He still left slowly, but he did go. The girl looked taken aback by his leaving. And frightened again.

"He left because I meant what I told him. I don't intend any harm to you. But there are things we have to discuss, you and I. Things to put in their proper places. Did Luke tell you who I am?"

She nodded.

"Good. That saves time. Unless we're very lucky, the police will come eventually. Even garbage like that doesn't disappear entirely unnoticed most of the time."

"Are they dead? He wouldn't tell me. They are, aren't they?"

_Also interesting._ "Yes, they are. Does that worry you?"

She thought about her answer; he liked that. "Not as much as dead people probably should. Maybe when this all...hits me, I don't know." She drifted off into thought again; he let her. Watching her reconcile whatever had gone on between her and Luke with what had just happened was the most interesting part of all. "He killed them." Her voice had a trying-this-on tone.

"Yes, he did. He broke their necks."

More pondering followed that. "All right, how do we keep him out of trouble?"

Bray was surprised and pleased; she had a formidable streak in her. Could she actually be worthy of his first son, coincidental as their path-crossing seemed? He believed very little in coincidence. "We do that by lying. We grew concerned when no one saw you for several days, and found you on the floor, suffering from a very high fever. You've been here for a week, as of yesterday."

"I don't remember much of the last week. I mostly ran a fever and slept."

"And none of us saw a thing amiss at your house in that time; we did watch, out of concern for your property. No one came that we saw; nothing was disturbed."

"Do I recognize them when they pull out the photos?"

_Marvelous._ "Did you?"

"One of them, yes."

"Then you do, that one. You've seen him in town. There's nothing so strange about that. It's not a very big town."

She met his gaze entirely and squarely for the first time. "Nothing's going to happen to Luke because of me."

"Has he bedded you?"

He meant the abruptness of the question to throw her off, and it did - but only for a second, when her gaze fell from his. "No."

"Would you like him to?"

He would have sworn she swallowed a smile. "That's kind of between the two of us, isn't it?"

He reached out and lifted her chin on the crook of one finger, making her meet his eyes again. "Not here. Here, it's between the three of us."

"Yes, I would. Just...maybe not tonight."

"I'm sure he understands that, lamb. Still, we have a few empty bedrooms. Would you like one?"

She shook her head vehemently.

"You won't be harmed here. You don't have to fear that. Not among us. But I don't imagine Luke will be disappointed that you want to stay here. And now that we're discussing your stay...You have the freedom of the grounds, but stay close to the house in case we have guests. You _are_ supposed to be weak and still recovering. If you need something from your house, ask Luke to get it. Don't go back yourself."

He hadn't intended to give her that much freedom of the place, not at all. He'd come in here intending to order her to stay in Luke's room until she left. But now it seemed like a good idea for her to start getting used to the compound, and to the others. Who was to say what might happen? "Try to rest. I know it won't be easy, but the more alert you are in the coming days, the better."

_Well, that wasn't so bad. He was kind of...nice?_ Julia didn't think she could really trust those impressions any more, though, and Luke coming back was one big reminder of it. He was a dangerous man, and the weather could turn on a second's notice, and she knew that now, didn't she?

He stayed in the doorway, watching her. "If you're afraid, I'll go somewhere else."

"If I were afraid, I'd already _be_ somewhere else. I was given the option. Besides, it's your room."

He came in and sat on the other end of the bed. He was still looking at her as if there was something specific he was searching for.

"You did what you did for me, Luke. I know that."

"And now you wonder if I'd do it _to_ you."

"No. I do wonder what else I don't know about you, though."

The searching look went on for a while longer. "Ask me. I guess you don't feel much like sleeping anyway, do you?"

She didn't. She was wondering if she'd ever feel like she wanted to again. He sat beside her, both of them propped against the headboard. At first she did have to ask questions, but he answered them all. She stuck with asking about him, and about his past; the answers she needed were there, in the things she couldn't see with her own eyes.

Eventually, she fell silent and just let him talk. It was if she'd uncorked him; he told her everything, all of it this time, nothing hidden or held back. It made her angry sometimes; she cried twice. But in the end, there was no way around one conclusion that was at the center of everything he'd said: Being here had saved him. Without the rather unnerving man who ran things, the Luke she knew, the one beside her now, wouldn't exist, lost to the one who'd charged into her room a few hours ago. _And you love him for that. I think maybe I could, too._

She pushed that aside; there were at least half a dozen things in it that were more than she wanted to think about. Luke abruptly pulled her up against him, hands clenched in her hair. It hurt a little, but she made no sound to let him know that. It wasn't the first time since he'd started that she'd wondered what the telling was costing him. He held her - a little more gently after a minute - until they both fell asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

Julia woke to the sensations of hands on her, of someone laying her down. _No. Oh, no._ She surfaced thrashing, breath gasped in to scream.

"Shh. It's me. Look."

Luke's voice coaxed her into opening her eyes. She let the breath go in a choked sound she couldn't quite believe was coming from her.

"I'm sorry; I didn't want to wake you up. I should have. I'll be back in a few hours. Try to go back to sleep."

She did for a while, but awareness finally woke her for good not long after dawn. She was in a strange place, in more than one sense, and her brain was insisting sleep time was over.

Even given that, and that she'd been allowed the run of the place more or less, she stayed right where she was. She wasn't ready to face people, however many of them there might be and however much or little they knew. Besides, the room in the house she was most curious about was right here.

There wasn't much to satisfy her curiosity. It had the look of a place that was used for sleeping and nothing else. There wasn't anything personal around, nothing on the walls. A huge bureau pushed in front of the window substituted for curtains. She did find a bag full of her own things in the corner, and traded the sheet for clothes as fast as she could.

She wasn't really sure why she was hurrying. _You were trying to climb him like a tree stark naked last night. Not to mention telling his leader...boss...whatever you've got the hots for him._ No way he wouldn't hear about _that_ before the day was over.

She sat down on the corner of the bed and thought about it. She hadn't been thinking about it when she'd answered that question. Did that mean it was truth that fell out of her mouth when she wasn't on guard against it?

"Good, you're awake. Are you hungry?"

She managed not to jump. She hadn't even heard him come in. Someone that big shouldn't be able to move so quietly - and she ought to be used to it by now, but she wasn't even close. "Yeah, I am."

"Are you ready to face breakfast with everyone?"

She could actually feel the blood draining from her face. "I..."

"It's all right. I'll bring food back."

It took her a few seconds after he left to realize he'd been teasing her. She was almost as surprised when he came back with food for them both.

"Did you think I was going to leave you here eating alone?"

"I didn't know if you had to be there."

"I usually am. But they'll survive a meal or two without me."

"Or six or eight?"

"No one here is going to sprout fangs, Julia. They're all curious about our guest, but they don't know any more about why you're here than what they're supposed to say if someone asks. And that you're where I've been spending my free time."

She decided not to take that bait.

The food was edible, and there wasn't much else to say about it. Whoever cooked it shouldn't legally have been allowed within 500 yards of a kitchen. She tried to keep a politely neutral expression, but his laughter said she failed. "Now you know why I'm good at showing up at mealtime. Teach the girls doing our cooking how to do what you do and they'll put up statues to you."

Which, along with being led there by the arm, was how she found herself in the kitchen facing the prospect of lunch for 14. She learned as much as she taught; the kitchen was an excellent place for both.

The crew was three women her age or a little younger. They had no idea what they were doing beyond "Don't burn it." A lot of the heap of food they were trying to tackle appeared to be grown there. She suspected the venison wasn't from far away, either, open season be damned. She considered the options and decided stew was reliably hard to screw up, and easy to upsize for a crowd.

Luke had told her to send one of the crew for whatever she needed from home. It would have been easier to go herself, but she sent one of the girls with a list.

They all deferred to her, which she suspected had more to do with Luke having brought her there than with any skills she had. She got a lot of openly curious looks - and, to her mingled amusement and embarrassment, some jealous ones. There were a few crushes in the mix, she thought. She didn't really want to know what he might be doing about that.

She also tried not to think too hard about this pretty much committing her to showing up at the meal, but that turned out to be not so bad at all; she even found herself enjoying it. There was no question she enjoyed the reactions to the meal - distracted digging in, followed by widened eyes and more enthusiastic eating. Luke shot her a sideward glance, the corner of his mouth twitching as much as she could tell.

Sitting with all of them gave her a better look at how things were, too. There were 14 of them. The average age looked to be about 20-25, favoring the younger end of the scale - which would make Luke an outlier. She didn't know for sure how old he was, but she assumed he was older than that. Bray and Erick, she couldn't begin to guess at ages for, though. There were more men than women, but not by a hugely skewed number.

What surprised her most was the atmosphere. She supposed it could have been put on for her to see, but she really didn't think so; everyone was too natural for that. The impression she came away with was simply the family meal of a large family. These were healthy, happy people; that they clearly deferred to one person wasn't so unlike a family either, was it?

They actually deferred to two people, she quickly saw. It underscored an impression she'd already been developing: She'd apparently caught the attention of the second in command here.

She helped with the dishes, in spite of being invited to behave more like a guest. She thought she saw more than one approving look over that, but approval really wasn't what she had in mind. It was more simply a matter of 'you helped dirty them, you help wash them.'

The entire day had actually been pleasant, and she'd managed to put out of her mind what would come at its end, when she suddenly had to deal with Luke having some new information about her.

_Maybe it isn't new_, she thought as he stepped aside to let her walk into his room first. _Maybe he already knew it._

"Are you comfortable being here?"

"I'm fine. It's...not very personal, though." She had an idea that wasn't exactly what he meant, but not enough of one to take any further.

He shrugged. "It's where my bed is."

"So you don't do anything but sleep here?"

"It's all I'm in here to do usually."

"Maybe...we should go to another room, then. If we're going to do anything besides sleep, I mean."

He looked at her for a long time before he answered. "Are you sure? This soon after what they did?"

"They _didn't_ do anything. Because of you. I'm sure."

"If this is gratitude, just thank me and go to sleep. That's not what I want."

"Tell me what you _do_ want. I feel like I'm never quite sure with you."

"You. From the first time I saw you. I've waited. And now you're here."

"Luke..."

"I know. You have a life out there - " He snapped his hand toward the window in an angry, dismissive sweep. " - and you'll go back to it in another month, and you're still afraid of me even if you say you're not, and you're afraid of us. But I'm not going to give up, not until I'm watching you drive off up that road and not look back. What else can I do?"

"I'm not afraid of you, Luke. I stopped being the second time you turned up. But the rest of it...You're right about it, all of it. I can't just throw away all the work I've done, not when it's so close to finished. And I can't...free-fall into something I don't understand."

"You can learn to understand. And the rest..." He shook his head finally, not meeting her eyes. "I'll lose you to the rest, I know that. But not now. Not yet."

She knew what was going to happen the moment she felt his fingers on the back of her neck, his palm cradling her skull. She tilted her head back for the kiss. She'd wondered what it would be like, no matter how hard she'd tried over and over to push the wondering back.

It was more like a treasure hunt than anything else. She felt him smile against her lips as she tried to find his, then he brought his other hand up to her cheek to hold her still. It was easier for him to find her than the other way around.

When she started giggling, he pulled back, looking at her quizzically.

"You _tickle_."

He smiled at some thought he chose not to share. "You'll get used to that." This time he held her face cupped in both hands, making her aware of how big they were. The heels of his hands at her chin, his fingertips slid into her hair an easy two inches above her temples.

_He could hurt me. He wouldn't even have to try._ Somehow the idea excited her, more because she knew he wouldn't than because she feared he would. All this strength, and all the force of will behind it, he held in control for her.

She reached up, wanting to touch him, but she suddenly felt shy and drew her hands back.

"Yes. Do that. Touch me. I want you to." He sat on the edge of the bed in front of her and took her hands, resting them on his shoulders. "I've thought about this..."

His shoulders were broad, hard under her fingers. He seemed to be made entirely of muscle and hair - the most bluntly _male_ man she'd ever been around. She pushed at his shirt; it was in her way, and it was annoying her. He shrugged it off, and the one underneath.

_And now we're back to the most I've ever seen of you._ She hadn't been in much of a state to see, though, let alone touch. Curiosity got the better of her; there was something she hadn't seen then, something she'd never seen. She ran her fingers under his beard, trailing them across his throat. She felt his pulse, not racing, but definitely working its way there, then let her fingers work their way down to his chest, running them through the tangle of hair. She brought her other hand up to join it, and he shivered at the first contact. His eyes were closed, as if he was trying to focus all his attention on the sensations.

She took a slow tour of him, neck to waist, then paused. _Might as well find out how much of a challenge this is going to be._ She let her hand slip lower. _Whoa. It's going to be one._ She both heard and felt his sharp, hissing gasp as she ran her hand along him, letting the thickness fill the cradle of her palm. He was hard, very ready for her. She moved back up to unfasten his jeans, and he caught her hands, eyes open again, and shook his head. He pushed her gently by the shoulders, encouraging her to lie back. She did, her own breathing picking up speed now.

He sat looking at her there, where he'd wanted her so badly. When she started shifting around nervously, he pushed the hem of her dress up to her waist, then skinned her panties off. She closed her eyes, suddenly shy as he looked at her hungrily, then brought up a hand to part her thighs, stroking the soft skin between them to encourage her to give him access to her. If she wanted to close her eyes for now, that was fine with him. She wasn't going to be able to see much of what he was about to do, anyway.

He cupped her in his palm, enjoying the heat of her. He let the tip of his middle finger slip into her, and she gasped, her hips rising from the bed a little. "Shh." She was very wet. He'd been thinking of two things almost non-stop for the past two months: How it would feel to sink into her, and how she'd taste.

She wiggled under the touch of his lips and tongue on her - but more because of his beard. It seemed to unerringly find everywhere she was most sensitive and rasp against her there. It didn't tickle the way kissing him had, not at all, but it was hard to stay still. He grabbed her hips and pinned them to the bed; it seemed to take him no effort at all to hold her still.

It didn't take him much more effort to make her come the first time. She was usually slow to kindle, which set her up for a lot of disappointment, but he didn't seem to be in any hurry, or to be getting tired of the effort. She was caught between concentrating on how maddeningly good it felt - she swore he was getting his tongue about a foot up inside her - and on not screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn't really want everyone in the house to know she was giving it up in here, but it was a losing battle. When he plunged two fingers in her, all the way, she just gave in to it, threw her head back, and howled.

She didn't know how many times she came; each time she tried to pull away, overloading on sensation, he pulled her back, laughing softly as he did. He kept doing it until she stopped fighting, too dazed to struggle any more.

She moaned a protest when he pulled away, left her there open and helpless. He wasn't gone long. When he turned her over and lifted her hips, she went willingly, though she was beyond being able to help. He swept over and into her before her brain could catch up with what was happening. It hurt - he was really too big for her, no matter how ready she was - but she could feel the pain taking her somewhere else, and it turned to maddening pleasure by the time he'd plunged into her the third time.

It wasn't lovemaking, far from it; it was barely even as civilized as fucking. It was utter possession, an end to frustrated lust. _He's mounting me...mating with me_, she thought. That finished resistance for her; if that was what he needed, it was his for the taking, and she didn't care if the whole damn place knew it. She wasn't entirely sure what was coming out of her mouth - his name, _yes_, how good his cock felt in her, a lot of things less polite, and all at the top of her lungs.

It ended with her bearing all his weight for a second or two, until she couldn't any more and buckled under him as he came. He moved off her just as she started struggling to breathe, carrying her over with him. When she tried to shift to a more comfortable position, he snarled and moved her body himself. She didn't try again; it felt too right to give in to him that way, too.

Her last thought before she fell asleep was her first clear one in the past two hours: _Oh, I think I might have a problem here._


	8. Chapter 8

The police showed up the next morning. What woke Julia wasn't their arrival, but Erick urgently shaking Luke. It almost bounced her right off the bed.

Luke got up, grumbling, and looked where Erick was pointing, through the small slice of window the bureau didn't cover up. "Time to look sickly and innocent, angel."

She took a deep breath. She'd known this would almost certainly come, but she'd clung to the tiny hope that no one would give a damn.

He came back and kissed her. "Relax. If we do our parts right, they won't have much to ask you. But put something on."

She did more than that; she also flung as much of his clothing as she could find into hiding places. It was good at this moment that there wasn't much to identify this as being anyone's room in particular.

She had plenty of time; everyone in the place must have stopped them on their way up. There were six of them. Luke stood in the doorway, filling it entirely, until one of the cops told him they needed to speak to her alone.

As soon as he was gone, one of the cops shut the door. "So..._that_ guy nursed you back to health?"

"He's done a lot to make me feel better, yes. What's going on, officer?"

"And what about this?" He was pointing at the bureau. She suddenly saw it as he must be seeing it: As one hell of an efficient way to keep someone from climbing out the window.

_Oh, shit. Come on, brain, come on..._"The light really bothered me for a few days after the fever broke. It still does a little. That's how he solved it."

"So we're being led to understand you weren't home when they said they were coming out here."

"They, who? Out here?"

Two of the cops exchanged looks. "Do you recognize these men?" One of them handed her a pair of photos.

"This one," she said, handing back the photo of the one she actually had recognized. "I've seen him in town."

"Did he bother you?"

"No, I just saw him in the grocery store a couple of times. What's going _on_?"

"How long have you been here?"

"A week and...a half now? There were a few days I don't really remember. They said my fever was really high."

"What _do_ you remember?"

"Feeling sick, like I was coming down with the flu. That was at home. And then I woke up here. They said I'd been here for four days. I don't remember much of that, either. Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"

They never did. She finally resorted to acting weak and dozy. They had nothing, and she knew it. More to the point, so did they. She was still nearly limp with relief when they left.

She stayed two more days, though she was feeling more goaded by the moment to get back to work. Bray's invitation to stay on a bit longer had an air of being an order, and he was right, regardless: It would look strange if the police came back and she'd had a miraculous recovery the moment they were gone.

She expected things to be awkward with Luke, and actually felt a little awkward that they _weren't_. He'd apparently decided at some point they wouldn't be; it would interfere with the sex.

She had plenty of opportunities for awkwardness with everyone else. She knew she'd been loud; she didn't know _how_ loud until she realized that absolutely everyone in the compound had heard her. All of them. They heard her a few more times, too; it seemed to take him no real effort to drive her right out of her skin. It took some getting used to that everyone seemed so happy about the whole thing - and to how happy she was about it, too. She didn't really want to go home when it was time. If she hadn't needed electricity to work, she might not have.

Losing a week so close to the end of her time was going to put a lot of pressure on her, but there was nothing for it. It wasn't so much the research data - she had nearly all she'd planned to gather of that - as the writing time that she'd lost. She didn't have the finances to take an extra semester to work on her dissertation; she needed to go back in the fall with a first draft an accomplished reality. It wasn't looking good for that now, not with three weeks left in her stay.

She threw herself into writing; for the next four days she was almost a recluse. It was coming clear, though, that she wasn't going to catch up, not entirely. There was no use in scribbling things to fill space. Her adviser would just return it, and the time spent scribbling would be wasted.

"Have you slept while I've been gone?"

It hardly seemed possible to get used to being scared out of her skin, but she thought she finally had. "Some. That's not so different from when you _are_ here, is it?"

"Not any more." He reached down and ran his fingertips over her cheek. "Come back with me. I like you being there. In my bed."

"I have one, too, you know."

He shook his head. "You belong in mine. That's how it should be." _How it could be, all the time, if you'd only give the idea a chance._ But he'd told himself he wouldn't fight with her and ruin the little time they did have left.

She smiled up at him. "So you're going to sneak me in your room like we're a pair of horny teenagers?"

"We don't have to sneak. You're welcome to come and go as you please."

"Nice choice of words. Luke, why do I suddenly have all this freedom?"

It paid to remember she was miles from stupid. "Because I'm not the only one who wants you to stay. You're good for the place, Bray knows that. You're good for me. He knows that, too. Besides, there's not a lot of use in sneaking you in, is there?"

She could feel herself turn beet-red. "No, I suppose not."

"Come with me, then."

She did. She did every night he was there, and woke in the morning to breakfast with everyone. The sense that she was being watched, read for signals, got stronger each day. No one said anything, but she felt it.

With a week left, she called her adviser.

"I think I have a problem."

"You met someone, didn't you?"

She'd been braced to explain; now she was just stunned to silence.

"I've been doing this for a long time, Julia. You've been showing the signs. You were out of touch for days. You've been less enthusiastic about your work, when you should be more. That usually means one thing. It's a little hard to believe you met someone _there_; I can only assume he's not the average local."

_You don't know the half of it._ "No, he isn't."

"And this has gotten serious enough for you to tell me about it. You have some options. Can you afford to take a sabbatical for a semester and see what you have here?"

"No. There's just no money."

"And he can't wait a semester for you? Or won't?"

"It's...complicated. But he can't." She'd already thought that one through. He might be willing to wait a few months, but it wasn't going to _be_ just a few months. Getting her degree was the start of a path, not the end of one. And that path led further from here the longer it got.

"Then you have a choice to make. One I can't help you with, as much as I'd like to. You know you're the last one I expected this from; I'd really like to meet this man."

It was tempting. Very.

For the last few days, she put aside work, put aside everything, and thought harder than she ever had about anything.

Luke wanted her to stay, and had made no secret about that; he'd also said he wouldn't ask her to, not if he couldn't offer to give up as much as she would be. And he couldn't do that, of course. The decision had to be hers. Before he'd left again, he'd told her the thing that had set her thinking so hard: "If it's truly a sacrifice to stay, if it would hurt you, don't. I don't want you to resent me, not ever."

The last night, she sat up waiting. He didn't come to her; she wasn't even sure if he was back yet. It was late - early, really - and she'd just about dried up all the tears that were in her, when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She knew, just by the feel of it there, that it wasn't Luke's. She looked up to find Erick standing there, his whole body tense.

"He isn't coming, is he?"

He shook his head.

"I guess I knew he wouldn't say goodbye. I just thought...Oh, never mind. It doesn't matter now."

He stood there, staring at her fixedly, looking somewhere between angry and distressed.

"I can't stay here. You do understand that, don't you? My lease is up on this place, and I don't have any more money."

He took her arm gently, and pulled her up out of the chair. He led her to the kitchen window and pointed out of it, toward the compound.

"I can't stay there, either. I don't belong there."

He dropped the hand he was pointing with, but kept hold of her arm. She waited for him to let go. She thought he'd work it out eventually; he deserved the time to do it in.

He reached up and rubbed his thumb across her cheekbone. It was dry now, but she had no doubt she still looked like she'd been crying.

"You belong with Luke."

Her jaw dropped hard enough that she heard it creak. "You _do_ talk. I was starting to wonder."

He gave her a crystal-clear _Stop changing the subject_ look and pointed out the window again.

"All right, maybe I do. _Probably_ I do. But - "

He put his hand over her mouth, shook his head, and uncovered it again.

"No buts. All right."

There was a pile of books and papers behind her - years of work, a future. Goals. There was a man out there in front of her who loved her, and who she loved back. Uncertainty, and a lot of it, but not about that one thing.

"Let's go. Take me to him. Take me home."


	9. Chapter 9

_I decided this needs one more chapter to be complete._

* * *

Luke sat up, groaning softly. All the things he'd sworn to himself and to Julia that he wouldn't do, he wanted to. The urges were different this time than they'd ever been before, but they were strong, unbearably strong: _Go to her. Tell her not to leave. Bring her back here. Don't LET her leave._

He could make her stay; he didn't think she'd even be entirely unwilling. He wanted to. But he wouldn't. Wasn't that what Bray had shown him in those first months, the ones that seemed to him to be tinted in red when he could remember anything at all? The urges could be controlled. They had to be. He _would_. For her, for Bray, for himself.

He wouldn't go to her, then. And she couldn't come to him. Not with _their_ world calling to her, promising her things. He knew it wouldn't deliver on those promises, but she didn't, not yet. He couldn't protect her from what was going to happen to her out there, not the way he could protect her here. Not the way he already had. _They're taking her from me, and all they'll do is hurt her._ He hated them, more than he ever had when he was the one being kicked.

He looked up; maybe it was a sound, maybe just a sense of presence. Erick was standing in the doorway, lantern in hand, watching him. Luke knew how much he saw, though; he'd always been like that. That made it a relief sometimes that Erick talked so little; he'd have a lot to talk about if he were chattery.

"Is something wrong?" It had fallen into that pattern early even when it was just the three of them, which it hadn't been for long: Practical problems, things that needed to be done, or fixed, or occasionally broken, fell to Luke. It kept those things from troubling Bray so he could do the real work of this place without mundane distractions.

But Erick just shook his head.

"Can't sleep, either?" He knew Erick had become attached to Julia, and very quickly for him. He was going to miss her, too, in his way. Maybe almost as much. "I can't make her stay. You know that, right? I love her, so I can't do that. Maybe if I didn't, forcing her wouldn't feel so wrong."

Erick just turned and left.

_Sorry it wasn't what you wanted to hear, man. It isn't what I want, either. But we've both had our share of that, right? We should be used to it._

There was still light in the hallway. Erick must have put his lantern down out there, though Luke couldn't imagine why.

"Luke?"

His head snapped up. Julia was standing in the doorway, lit from behind by the faint glow.

Hallucinations? It couldn't be this bad, could it? He closed his eyes. She'd be gone when he opened them.

She wasn't.

"You're not going to say anything to me?"

_I'm going to need help. I'm going to need Bray to help me tonight. I can't do this alone._

"Please say _something_." She took four steps into the room, changed from a flickering silhouette to something more solid. More real. "Did you mean it? What you said?"

All right, so she was a hallucination. Maybe that would help him get through this night, get through until she left tomorrow and was too far away for him to do anything unforgivable. "I meant it."

"And you can tell him but not me. Should I worry about that?"

_Even my delusional version of her is a little wiseass._ "No. Should I worry that you didn't know already?"

"I did, I guess. But throwing away everything for words I never even heard...that's a lot, you know?" She looked at him, amusement rising in her eyes. "You _do_ realize you're awake right now, right?" She came closer, close enough to run her fingertips over his cheekbone in that way she had, the way she did when the sex had been especially good.

She _was_ there. The scent of her skin, that was what told him. Not a perfume; he couldn't recall her ever wearing one around him. Just her, her own scent, the one he knew from the nights of her here in his bed.

He gave up thinking about it and did what he wanted to do: He lunged for her, pulled her down onto the bed with him, then under him. "Say it. Say all of it. Tell me."

Her eyes were already getting that hungry, sleepy look he loved putting in them. "You know. Please, baby..."

That was almost enough to make him let her off the hook. Almost. "Say it, Julia. If you mean it, you can tell me so."

She moaned, a frustrated, edgy sound that shot up his spine like electricity. "I love you, Luke. I want to be with you. The rest of it...I don't know any more. I'll make peace with that. I don't think I can make peace with leaving you."

"There's peace here. If there is for me, there must be for anyone." He wasn't feeling exactly peaceful right now, but that was because she was trying to get her hands in his pants, so he couldn't see it as a bad thing. Actually, he thought it would be a good thing to help her get to what she wanted. The polite thing to do.

She cried out softly, fingers in his back, as he slipped into her. He wanted more than that; he wanted everyone to know she was here, home with him to stay. He knew how to do that. "You want this, angel? To be mine?"

"God, yes. Now, Luke, please, _now_..."

Now. That was the secret, wasn't it? There was now, and there was all she'd have to struggle with, and make peace with, and find her place in. But those things were for later. Now was this - that hunger he craved flaring in her eyes, the promises she whispered and the pleasure she shouted as he moved in her. Now was for knowing that she would stay, that love mattered more to her than ambition or fear or uncertainty. Now was for feeling the same things, no matter how different the two of them were by daylight.

Now was for making her scream and shout. Hell, now was for seeing if she knew how to yodel.

After was for sleep, usually. She could shake him enough to make him drop like a stone off a cliff into sleep, which was a small, recurring miracle to him. How long had it been since he could just...sleep? He didn't even know any more.

But not tonight. Neither of them would sleep. He didn't want to let go of _now_, but he had to, because she couldn't help but do it. She was looking through the open door, but she couldn't step inside with what she saw, not quite yet.

"I'll tell Bray in the morning that you're staying." Luke smiled. "But I think he already knows."

"What if he says no?"

"He won't. I already asked him. He wants you here...maybe almost as much as I do, in a different way."

"You get my heart and my body, and...he gets my mind?"

He shifted so she wasn't carrying so much of his weight, but she was still pinned firmly under him. "You still think that? You think that and you came to me anyway?"

"Bray scares me, Luke. You _must_ know that. What will he want from me? What's the price for letting me stay? Tell me. I'll pay it, but don't let it be a surprise when it comes."

"There _is_ no price. Not that you pay to him. You owe me some things, though."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You already know them. You stay with me, and you're my woman. _Mine_. All of you." He felt her shiver under him; he didn't think it was from fear now. "You let me take care of you. Every way."

"And what do I _do_? I'll be a problem child within a week just sitting around."

"Three days, more likely. They won't just be happy for me that you're staying, you know. There's a place for you here, Julia, if you'll accept it. You fill up spaces here, things that were missing. I don't know how to explain it. Bray probably does. Ask him why _he_ wants you here. What he says will be the explanation. And your answer to what you can do here. Besides this." He shifted again; he hadn't felt her take a deep breath. "What about the other way? Is anyone going to call the cops when you don't go back?"

"My adviser, maybe. He already knows something's up, but I'd better talk to him again. And most of what I own is next door, but I still need a few things from back there."

"Send for them."

"I'm not going to change my mind, Luke. But there's a landlord to deal with, I have to withdraw from school, all that stuff. I have to go back and do that. If it bothers you, go with me. But I have to do this right - nothing to come back and bite me in the ass six months from now."

He nodded. "All right, yeah. You really wouldn't get upset about being followed?"

"You keep talking about everything I'm giving up. Maybe you ought to come see how little it really is. You said you don't want me to resent you. I don't want you to feel guilty, either. There's no reason for either one."

They slept eventually, when light started seeping in around the bureau in front of the window.


End file.
